Celebrate day that promotes literacy in world

Published: Friday, September 6, 2013 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 12:02 p.m.

Sunday marks International Literacy Day. Celebrate by reading something — The Dispatch, a book, the back of the cereal box while you're having breakfast.

Not everyone can share the pleasure of reading.

The United Nations, while not always acting with the most noble of intentions, got it right when it set Sept. 8 as an annual time to promote the importance of literacy.

The UN says 774 million adults around the world lack minimum literacy skills and about two-thirds are women.

Don't dismiss that statistic as a problem far from home.

Many Davidson County adults are considered functionally illiterate — unable to read well enough to handle basic daily tasks such as deciphering the words on a medicine bottle.

Reading isn't just about pleasure.

It's about getting a good job. Making a better living for yourself and your family. Being a responsible citizen.

There's a great deal of talk these days about what "literacy" actually means. In some circles, the definition has been expanded to include knowledge of basic computer skills and the ability to access information online.

Certainly, knowing how to get information across the many platforms now available is a basic skill for just about everyone. But what good is knowing how to get that information if you can't read the information you get?

At its core, literacy is about knowing a word when you see it.

Continued improvement in literacy skills will remove barriers to economic development that have hindered Davidson County. A better qualified workforce will serve as a magnet for companies searching for a suitable location.

And a more literate population, in Davidson County and elsewhere, will go a long way to preserving America as the land of the free.

Reading gives individuals the opportunity to find out for themselves what is going on with their government and by those who hold power through elections. Otherwise, one is left to find out from others who may slant information to suit their own agenda.

The Internet has made government information more available that ever before, but availability means nothing to the individual who cannot read.

Reading allows each person to decide for himself or herself where he stands on any issue and to determine a candidate's suitability for office based on the reader's own thoughts and beliefs.

Those thoughts and beliefs go into the polling place with the individual and give him or her the power to shape the community, the state and the nation.

Celebrate your own ability to read Sunday on International Literacy Day. If you know someone who needs help with reading, be a good friend or a good family member and direct that person to resources that can help, such as programs at Davidson County Community College, Communities in Schools and Davidson County School Readiness/Parents as Teachers.

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